The Spencer Davis Group - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1967-1973

I already post4ed two albums of the Spencer Davis Group performing for the BBC. Those dealt with the time Steve Winwood was a member, and lead singer, of the group. I figured that was it, because Winwood is a musical giant and was the chief attraction for me. But in putting together lots more BBC albums for this blog, I found out that the band still had merit without him. 

Most importantly, when he left in early 1967, along with his brother Muff Winwood, they were replaced by Phil Sawyer on guitar and Eddie Hardin on keyboards. Sawyer didn't stay long, but Hardin was the key recruit. He sang lead vocals, and his voice had more than a passing resemblance to Steve Winwood's. But also, it turned out he was a decent songwriter. In late 1968, he left the band and took the drummer Pete York with him. They created the duo Hardin and York and had some success. The rest of the Spencer Davis Group fizzled out and then broke up without those two. Then, in 1973, the band was reformed with Hardin and York back in the fold, only to break up again in 1974.

So the way I look at it, this was basically a new band, an early version of Hardin and York. Guitarist Spencer Davis himself was a point of continuity, but in my opinion he was never the key member of the group despite having his name in the band's name. This new band didn't reach the commercial or critical success of the band with Steve Winwood, because Winwood's vocal and instrumental talents are unique and extraordinary, but if you compare them with other bands of the day, they were pretty good, I think. They still kept doing some R&B like they'd done with Winwood, but they also did a fair amount of psychedelic influenced music, to keep up with the times in 1967 and 1968.

This Winwood-less version of the band didn't do that many BBC sessions, but luckily there's just enough for an album decent length. It would be longer, except I didn't include the second versions of three songs they played twice: "Time Seller," "Feel Your Way," and "Mr. Second Class." As it is, I think it works neatly as a "best of" of this version of the band, featuring all their best known songs, including their three minor British hits, "Time Seller," "Mr. Second Class," and "After Tea." ("Time Seller" hit number two in the Netherlands.)

By the way, although it wasn't released as a single, their best song may be the first one, "Don't Want You No More." If you're a fan of the Allman Brothers Band, you probably recognize this. They did an instrumental version if it on their first album as part of a medley with the song "It Ain't My Cross to Bear," and they played that medley a zillion times in the years afterwards. It's interesting to hear the original version with lyrics.

All of the performances here from 1967 and 1968 have been officially released on the compilation album "Taking Out Time." However, a number of them, the ones with "[Edit]" in their titles, had BBC DJs talking over the music. I removed the DJ vocals in the usual way I do, using X-Minus audio editing software.

The last three songs are somewhat different. These all date to 1973, during the band's short-lived reunion. They're all from an unreleased concert that was broadcast on the BBC at the time. They finished with a version of "Gimme Some Lovin'," the band's most famous song from when Winwood was a member. 

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 Don't Want You No More [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
02 Mr. Second Class [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
03 Time Seller [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
04 Feel Your Way (Spencer Davis Group)
05 Taking Out Time (Spencer Davis Group)
06 Moonshine [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
07 After Tea [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
08 Dust My Blues [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
09 With His New Face On (Spencer Davis Group)
10 Let's Have a Party (Spencer Davis Group)
11 Catch You on the Rebop (Spencer Davis Group)
12 Gimme Some Lovin' (Spencer Davis Group)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/B1qJ4aFZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/dwuOm4zJruAcfcG/file

Boy, did I have a heard time finding any decent photos of this version of the band. Steve Winwood casts such a huge shadow over the band that it seems virtually any photo includes him. I had to resort to using the photo of the cover of the "Taking Out Time" compilation album. It's not great - is it intentional that one of the band members is visibly yawning? - but at least it's not terrible.

The Spencer Davis Group - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1966-1967

Here's the second and last album of the Spencer Davids Group performing for the BBC. As I mentioned in the previous post, this basically was Steve Winwood's group right before he formed Traffic. However, their material was much more overtly based on soul music.

Most of what I said in the post for Volume 1 holds here for Volume 2. Once again, the sound quality is excellent, even though it's a mix of released and unreleased material. In fact, this volume has more unreleased performances than released ones. 

And, once again, many of these songs had BBC DJs talking over the intros. There were eight cases of that here, which I have fixed. Using the audio editing program X-Minus, I wiped out the talking while keeping the underlying music.

Pretty much all of the songs on Volume 1 were songs the band did on albums or singles. But there are some songs the band did on this album that they didn't record elsewhere, as far as I can tell. That includes "Rambling Rose," "Mess Up a Good Thing," "Oh Pretty Woman," and "That's All." Also, note that "Oh Pretty Woman" is a cover of the Albert King song, not the famous Roy Orbison song.

For both this and this first album, I avoided including two versions of the same song. Luckily, there weren't many instances of those. I believe the duplicates were "Mean Woman Blues," "Midnight Train," "It's Gonna Work Out Fine," "Together 'Till the End of Time," and maybe one or two more. (I forget.) It's very fortunate that there's one version of each of their big hits, considering we don't have any instances of any of those being played twice. Also note that probably their best known song, "Gimme Some Lovin'," has some different lyrics for the third verse. (And you can actually understand more of the rest of the lyrics.)

The Spencer Davis Group kept going for many years after Steve Winwood left in early 1967. They played some more at the BBC too. But my interest is with the Winwood years, so this album stops chronologically right when Winwood left. (They did do some good stuff later, but they moved in a different musical direction and pretty much became a different band.)

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Please Do Something [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
02 Rambling Rose (Spencer Davis Group)
03 Somebody Help Me (Spencer Davis Group)
04 Let Me Down Easy [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
05 Mess Up a Good Thing [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
06 Dust My Blues [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
07 I'm Getting Better [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
08 Together 'Til the End of Time [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
09 When I Come Home (Spencer Davis Group)
10 Mean Woman Blues (Spencer Davis Group)
11 Gimme Some Lovin' (Spencer Davis Group)
12 I Can't Get Enough of It [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
13 Oh Pretty Woman (Spencer Davis Group)
14 Neighbour, Neighbour (Spencer Davis Group)
15 I'm a Man (Spencer Davis Group)
16 Take This Hurt Off Me (Spencer Davis Group)
17 That's All [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nQpLfPs8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/K39hQv5DtUZbe9V/file

The cover art comes from a 1966 publicity photo.

The Spencer Davis Group - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1964-1965

One thing I've focused on with this blog is to post music recorded by the BBC. I'm especially keen to post BBC sessions from all the important 1960s bands, due to the excellent sound quality from a time when there usually wasn't much recorded well other than the official studio recordings. Some of that has never been officially released. Or, if it has, the BBC DJs talked over the starts to many songs. I have limited sound editing skills, but one thing I can do is fix those in most cases. So here we go with another 1960s band, the Spencer Davis Group.

I feel this band is unjustly neglected. I'm guessing a lot of that has to do with the fact that they were called the Spencer Davis Group when Steve Winwood was the main lead vocalist and star. Basically, if you want to hear Winwood rip through lots of soul music covers and some originals in the same vein, this band is the place to look.

The band's BBC recordings have been somewhat neglected. There was one fairly obscure album of those recordings released in 2002, called "Mojo Rhythms & Midnight Blues, Vol. 1." But it missed many songs. Luckily, I was able to find the others with comparable sound quality. I also added three songs that technically were done live in concert: "Kansas City," "Every Little Bit Hurts," and "Stevie's Blues." But these were recorded shockingly well for the year, and sound as good as the others. I suspect they were done in a sound check type situation, because they have virtually no crowd noise. (I edited out a little bit after the songs ended.)

This band was a victim of the problem I mentioned above, BBC DJs talking over the starts of songs. Five songs here had that problem, the ones I've marked with "[Edit]" in the titles. I've used the audio editing program X-Minus to wipe out the talking while keeping the underlying music.

In most instances, the songs here are songs the band did on albums or singles, and the arrangements are basically the same. But still, they do an impressive job playing these songs live. Plus, this album, plus the Volume 2 that will follow, basically make up an excellent "best of" for the band, as it includes all their hits and the songs they enjoyed playing the most.

One song, "Midnight Train" is a bonus track only because I have another version of the song on this album, and I don't like including multiple versions. But the sound quality on the bonus version is as good as the others here.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Midnight Train (Spencer Davis Group)
02 It's Gonna Work Out Fine (Spencer Davis Group)
03 Dimples [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
04 My Babe [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
05 Watch Your Step (Spencer Davis Group)
06 It Hurts Me So (Spencer Davis Group)
07 I Can't Stand It [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
08 Kansas City (Spencer Davis Group)
09 Every Little Bit Hurts (Spencer Davis Group)
10 Stevie's Blues (Spencer Davis Group)
11 Strong Love (Spencer Davis Group)
12 This Hammer [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)
13 She Put the Hurt on Me (Spencer Davis Group)
14 Keep On Running (Spencer Davis Group)
15 Goodbye Stevie [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)

Midnight Train [Edit] (Spencer Davis Group)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1KKbswV5

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/HwEJPqVM2yGopce/file

The album cover uses a publicity photo from 1965.

The Spencer Davis Group - Valmiina Pyorii, Helsinki, Finland, 3-19-1967

Just yesterday, Spencer Davis died of pneumonia at the age of 81. He was best known as the founder of the 1960s band the Spencer David Group. But even though the band was named after him, the band was dominated by their remarkable lead singer Steve Winwood. At the time of the band's first single, he'd only just turned 16 years old. But he would go on to have a long and successful career with Traffic, then Blind Faith, then as a solo artist.

I've had a Spencer Davis Group concert that I've been meaning to post, so this seems like a good time to do it. Steve Winwood was only with the band a relatively short time, from 1963 to early 1967. But virtually all of their big success was with him. They had four big hits, which were number 1 either in Britain or Canada: "Keep On Running," "Somebody Help Me," "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'm a Man." But despite their successes, they never released a live album, and there are virtually no bootlegs of them in concert.

Luckily, virtually no bootlegs isn't the same as no bootlegs. I've found two interesting videos with very good (though not excellent) sound quality, plus two other officially released live tracks. I've put them all together to make this album. The first four songs here are from an appearance on the German TV show "Beat Beat Beat" in 1966. The rest of the album comes from a concert in Helsinki, Finland, in March 1967 that luckily also was shown on TV. You can find that, and the German TV appearance, on YouTube.

The band was named the "Spencer Davis Group" mainly because Davis was talkative and didn't mind doing interviews, whereas the other band members were shy. So Davis does a lot of the talking between the songs. But Steve Winwood does the vast majority of the lead vocals, as well as playing the organ. If you only know him from his work with Traffic and after that, you're missing out. He already was an excellent vocalist with a remarkable, distinctive voice in these years. Yeah, sometimes the songs are more poppy, but also often soulful and/or bluesy.

The album as a whole is 35 minutes long. The Finland concert part alone is 25 minutes long.

01 Keep On Running (Spencer Davis Group)
02 Sittin' and Thinkin' (Spencer Davis Group)
03 Please Do Something (Spencer Davis Group)
04 Somebody Help Me (Spencer Davis Group)
05 When I Come Home (Spencer Davis Group)
06 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
07 Dust My Blues (Spencer Davis Group)
08 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
09 Mean Woman Blues (Spencer Davis Group)
10 Together 'Till the End of Time (Spencer Davis Group)
11 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
12 I'm a Man (Spencer Davis Group)
13 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
14 Georgia on My Mind (Spencer Davis Group)
15 talk (Spencer Davis Group)
16 Gimme Some Lovin' (Spencer Davis Group)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yiyQVvn3

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/lXTLa3dA1nL1edH/file

The cover art photo is of the band in 1967. Steve Winwood was still in the band, here's on the far right, so it must be from early 1967. Winwood's eyes were looking off to the side, so I made an adjustment in Photoshop to make him looking forward like all the others.